Andrew
Lightstone
ironically it is the abuse of the fire that gets the children rescued. To try to get Ralph near the end, Jack sets the forest on fire
and a ship sees and comes. This shows, that in the end evil prevailed and ended up saving the children. If Ralph remained in control, chances are the ship wouldn’t have seen the fire. The fire itself seems to represent the children. Just like the fire, when the children first came onto the island, they were small and didn’t seem as though they could do any harm. But when given the chance to get out of control (when too many sticks are put on and around the fire) they would take it and end up destroying the island.
The one thing the children needed was Piggy’s glasses. They represented rescue and hope. The glasses lit the fire that helped them to make smoke. They were the only things the children needed on the island, and they came from the one who most people thought was useless. Piggy. Yet they were the only remaining things that came from the adult world-civilisation. When they broke, all hope of rescue had gone, and the last link the children had to civilisation had been snapped.
The island was completely natural having no help from humans. Yet once humans intervene, the damage is done. ‘The scar,’ where the plane crashed, leaving, ‘splintered trunks,’ was man’s first contact with the island. Once the children had got to know each other, they climbed the mountain and pushed the boulder off with a, ‘heave.’ They had absolutely no reason to do so. It shows the destructiveness of the older generations has
echoed through to their children and it foreshadows the events that will take place further on in the story.
When the boys are standing on the mountain they see the island is actually boat shaped. This shows mans journey and the fact that the boys are isolated, with no way off the island unless there is a boat to use.
Andrew
Lightstone
The one thing that ultimately controls the boys and destroys them mentally is their fear for, ‘the beastie.’ The idea of it is planted in the boys heads by the boy, ‘with the mulberry-coloured
birthmark. The idea of a beastie, means there is a threat on the island and ultimately, puts the children in place of the animals
they themselves are hunting. The irrational fear the beast stirs up
inside the boys, gives them an excuse for their uncontrolled violence and is the primary cause of the chaos. The fear also prevents the
children from seeing the truth, that the beast is the evil inside them all. The children believe the beast to have a bodily form, an evil within the island. The beast shows the way the children directed the evil that lurked inside them, and gave it a physical form. This gives them the idea that something else on the island is trying to get them and is bad. This means that the children maintained a positive image of themselves making them believe that what they did was right.
Those who don’t believe in the beast, like Simon, saw the evil within the boys and knew what they were doing was wrong. The concept of the beastie brings out the evil within the boys and makes them regress back to primitive times. The fear is kept alive by the boys’ nightmares and the need for security on the island. It is trying to show, that we ourselves are advanced versions of animals. The thin wall of separation between animals and us is the society that we have built up. Animals have no morals, no guilt and no laws. If we didn’t have them, we would be no better than animals. The fear of the unknown and the threat within the children is enough to break this wall of morality and the children regressed back to a primitive state.
The fruit on the island is not enough for the boys so they decide to go in search of meat. ‘Hunters,’ were made and they went off in search of meat. The choir were made the hunters and were led by Jack. This seemed to have made Jack regress faster than any of the other boys. He was now, ‘dog-like,’ and, ‘nearly mad,’ with the subject of hunting. His blood lust was so unhealthy he forgot about the rescue-the main factor which the other boys were aiming for. This foreshadows the way the story turns, as Jack becomes so obsessed with hunting that he and the choir splits from the others. As the rules and morals that the boys had grown up with slowly deteriorate, Jack brings up the idea of masks. He thinks that if his face is painted, then he his hidden from society, and he could do whatever he wants. This shows the primitive form that Jack has become.
